Read Online Absolution Creek by Nicole Alexander - Free Book Online Page A

would say she was in her prime. Why then was she so cursed by the past that she was afraid of sharing her future?
    The scent of him lingered and warmed her like a caress. Despite the presence of the great tree, the room felt bereft. That’s what she hated most, what she’d always hated: the great gulf of emptiness that followed their leaving. And they all left, eventually, in one way or another. She couldn’t go through that again: the heart-wrenching hurt. Cora cradled her head, wishing she were different, yet remembering, always remembering.
    On the quietest of nights, when the sky was a glassy pond, the memories of the past years hovered about her. They came like drifts of windblown leaves through the blue haze of the scrub and carried the scents of the old days. And like the spirits of the people who roamed the land before white man knew what he trod upon, Cora conjured up her own dreaming, for she couldn’t escape from the past.

    Cora walked her brown gelding slowly through the grass. The ground was parched. Although January brought rain it was some three months since the heavens graced Absolution Creek with even the slightest spit. With winter coming and the chance of new growth dwindling with each passing day, Cora could smell the approaching dry spell. It hung in the cloudless sky and clung in the shadows when the evenings grew long. Kangaroos, wallabies and emus were increasing in numbers. They were coming in from further afield, from the western division of the state where grazing country was diminished. Cora knew all the signs, and she hated what they foretold. She thought of calling James and chatting about the weather, however a fortnight lay between their last encounter and today.
    For April the nights were already cool, the pre-dawn breathing dew across the countryside, a tantalising taste of moisture soon to be stolen by the sun. This day was no different. Droplets of dew were already settling on her thighs and the shoulders of her thick coat. She had been out riding since the witching hour and followed her usual pattern: first stalking the impossibly square garden of the homestead, and then slipping through the fence to the house dam to startle the kangaroos lolling by the leopardwood trees near the edge of the water. They were used to her nightly invasion, and the only responses she elicited were raised heads and a pricking of ears. Cora was a part of their surroundings, night or day. She cut a lone figure in beige moleskin trousers and oilskin jacket, a pistol holstered at her waist, a rawhide stockwhip curled about her shoulder, bridle dangling in her gloved hands. Her horse, as usual, had been girth-deep in water. The animal had stared with unblinking eyes at the still surface of the dam until Cora’s whistle enticed him out of his wallowing habit. Three hours on they were still traversing the landscape.
    ‘Come on, Horse.’ Cora tugged lightly on the reins, directing them away from the open paddock towards the creek. A waning moon clung mid-sky. A scatter of sheep, the wool on their frames glowing in the half-light, moved methodically across the land. They walked in a staggered V formation, feeding into the northerly wind. Cora twitched the wide brim of her hat and glanced about the paddock, the tang of manure rich in the night air. A line of darkness marked the woody scrub bordering the waterway, and far off to the west a distant treeline defined the edge of Absolution Creek. With three miles of boundary fence already checked, Cora was wary of tarrying in case she missed the object of her ride.
    The land was quiet. False dawn appeared with a soft halo of light enticing the bush to movement. A kookaburra flew overhead, a small rodent in its beak. Horse plodded past an ant hill, disturbing a handful of camped sheep as he walked along the edge of the creek. He meandered between clumps of gum trees towards the waterway. A gentle pull on the reins and they were descending the bank. Cora’s hand moved